and then in the still of night they opened fire. and it became obvious that the situation was escalating. still. very last moment like i was hoping they would stop. around one am when i talked to the people who were directly involved in the situation. it became clear that those were not just minor provocations but a full blown attack. intended to turn the situation in south ossetia around by force and overthrow its government. so after that was reported to me i had to make a decision. a very difficult decision. i had to give the order to open fire on georgian troops. with. mean that this was if you will an opening gambit

a complex strategy. yes you're right. i think several factors came into play. firstly mr saakashvili was probably under the illusion that after the change of leadership in russia he might quietly pursue his agenda previously been beyond his reach and the reach of his predecessors. but. secondly and i've said it before. i think that the support that saakashvili got from the united states and some other countries played a certain role. but it wasn't just plain encouragement there was financial support as well. let me remind you that by two thousand and eight georgia's defense budget had grown to almost a billion dollars fifty times what it had been in two thousand and two. clearly

georgia was boosting its military might. and something like this always affects policy. seems that there was an understanding that since georgia applied for nato membership. the bid was not rejected outright but that it was. some kind of a waiting list and that it was invulnerable. almost felt like the nato collective defense principle applied to them as well. but i think that all of these factors eventually led second philly and some of his advisors to believe that they could achieve their goals by force. huey. many experts believe that saakashvili may have considered two possible scenarios the first one was based on russia not getting involved in the conflict for whatever

reason or if. the second was that russia would act rashly and go overboard making it easy for georgia to portrayed as the aggressor and gain international support. in order to fix the obvious imbalance of power between the two countries. up with the mental health feasible do you think this second plan was. i don't hold psychos philly's diplomatic and military talents in high regard and. i don't think he was counting on the second scenario it would have been too complex i think he was hoping that russia wouldn't get involved in the conflict with the whole so human georgian troops could quickly enter to. control over all of the main buildings and restore what they thought was constitutional order the writing on the wave of support from the united states and some other countries on the second

scenario was very risky because going overboard like you said it would have had some serious consequences for him personally as well if you mean that you. i have a few questions about that too but before we go there i would like to talk about the movement of russian troops in the area on georgian territory i know firsthand that there were airstrikes and some georgian towns. in the aveo that are did those strikes have a strategic value for the russian army. i think if they were did they happen just because they happened. i think that this was not strategic and it didn't happen just because it happened but war is war and in war you have to destroy the enemy's military targets. targets that have the potential to hurt the russian army and

civilians and south of. russian citizens. so that's what we hit not civilian targets. no matter what his propaganda machine claimed our goal was to disable military targets including airports and you say that the enemy wouldn't be able to fly jets out to transport military equipment and hardware etc like this they're. sure that you know i had the opportunity to cover many conflicts in libya and syria and in a number of other countries and one of the buzzwords of today's geopolitical but can't be larry is mission creep. it means an operation starts as peace enforcement and ends with the toppling of a country's leader in this regard i would like to ask you was there a chance of mission creep in that conflict this is exactly where you as they say feel the difference i believe that in situations like this country reveals its true

intentions. initially we never had the objective of changing the ruling regime. even though for obvious reasons my colleagues and i will never shake mr saakashvili is and again. i consider him a war criminal. nonetheless we believed as we still do that it is the people's responsibility to deal with their own leaders with him we believe it's wrong to change a country's political structure and to put people of your own choice in power in violation of the un charter we wouldn't quibble with you we believe that in the twenty first century people should act differently and the government should act according to different principles and principles of international law. in your reply you said we are number of times i know it's not the first time you've been asked this but this question is hard to avoid. as i understand it during that time

you stayed in contact with the oprah disaster and calls his colleagues led him a putin did you have any disagreements with him well no our understanding has always been very similar but i can tell you that the burden of responsibility for such tough military decisions always lies with the one who's given your thirty to make them under the constitution there's no way to avoid this there's only one person who can make that decision and there's nothing more to it we talked on the phone some time before these events as a bit of certain escalation in the region during the night of the attack mr putin and i didn't talk at all but i was getting reports from our army's top commanders basically it was after receiving those reports that i made the decision which i consider the most difficult of my whole life the political as for disagreements there weren't any we had discussed the matter a number of times even before i took office. that office. let's go back to us philly's plans to portray russia as the aggressor and the eyes

of the international community. i cannot help but admit that at the early stage of the conflict he was quite successful at that how significant was the role of the international community in your forecasts and in your efforts to formulate an adequate response did you think you could count on europe and even the united states to judge russia's and georgia's actions fairly. that i should. i was expecting a more unbiased approach i had no illusions i even recall the first thing i heard from my colleague to be george w. bush when i was visiting the white house as the head of the presidential administration. he said well. really is a good guy and that was the first thing i heard from him. on a more serious note. the reaction of internet. as was very important for us for our

country and for me personally as president but on the limb in addition it could look as if. this was not the main point was not all the main thing was to protect russia's interests as well as the lives and well being of our citizens to be honest the international reaction was not top of my list of concerns i went to say that i didn't think about it but it was a minor thing at the new book well we'll continue this conversation after. the judge is a sense of. killed on the streets. that women kidnapped and converted to islam. will there be another moses from the cultic

christians of egypt to the cross to. future victims. the way of the cross.

i would rather ask questions for people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my fellow larry king now right here on r.t. question more. choose your language. clearly we can without any financial center special someone.

chooses to use the consensus get to. choose the opinions that immigrate to. choose the stories that imply to. choose the accents off to. welcome back to worlds apart where we are discussing war and peace with russia's former president and current prime minister better but the conflict to signal a stop designed to. the position of the united states in this conflict was quite interesting and twofold it supported georgia through diplomatic channels and in the media but it didn't follow through with that what do you think that is. that's because this is russia. the u.s. knows not to be at all with russia and every us president understands that there

were hot tempered people involved and we all know that but i believe that the deliberations were quite cool headed because it might have resulted in a very serious conflict you know nobody wanted this to happen but that's why as you've said the usa adopted a two pronged approach which was very great disappointment for most of georgia's pundits. to what extent do you think the us authorities were informed of the plans i mean why do you regard it as a joint georgian american plot or as a risky undertaking of the georgian president. you know i don't know. because it was the worst thing but i believe that the united states of america is a large mature and powerful state that pursues its own interests. all over the world you don't wish doing to you i don't think that such

a simple plot with mr saakashvili but which as we now know ended with such few millions in failure with that would have been at all in line with the interests of the united states government not laying all of your cards on the table is one thing . but me putting on such an act is an entirely different matter. in my opinion he overreached with the group before but more likely but i sure this was a bad bets that turned out to be criminal for the georgian leader. we'll go with him good morning provided to us it up with him we have already discussed your work but i'd like to ask a few questions about ours journalists often view themselves as independent voices in any conflict that well. i'm quite skeptical about this as i personally saw journalists taking sides with the. not boy be annoyed.

that i knew what in your opinion what was the role of the mass media and that war. was it driven by duty or was it used as a weapon in this geopolitical game. unfortunately i can't help but agree with you. around ninety percent of reports in respected international media were pure propaganda and only ten percent was the truth. it was a personal disappointment for me and i'm under no illusions. you nor. the way certain media behaved in that period was a blatant example of cynicism. they passed black for white and will it be all of a declared russia the aggressor with some time had to pass before me started

acknowledging that even though russia had been tough it was a justified response to the attack. and now when we have the results of analyses by numerous independent commissions including tell you of any new everybody recognizes what really happened. i remember that at the time many members of your own press service were working in vol i mean the kremlin staff who organize some of the high level official meetings. on the one hand it shows the importance of working with the media which the kremlin recognized that the time but on the other hand it shows that the country was prepared for it. do you think russia as a whole and the russian leadership in particular have learned a lesson from this war when it comes to working with the media. i believe that a country that builds its ideology around war is on the wrong path who.

listens need to be learnt there's no doubt about it or just as you pointed out one of them yourself and i completely agree with you. you. i mean the bias of a number of foreign media and their distinctly anti russian propaganda. on the other hand of course we do need to be prepared to act in such cases. if something like this heaven forbid had happened later. i suppose our response would have been better coordinated but we also to be entirely honest i don't think we made any major mistakes. but it is a common perception that russia wasn't a successful bit propaganda. let's not forget that we stood by our own beliefs. to me whilst most western mass media followed the narrative of

their foreign ministries. they were all working together as one military political alliance. up with the way do you believe a war can be won to mass media but when you were answering the question just now i recalled what happened in libya and all the accusations against gadhafi. now a few years later most of them don't appear substantiated but any kind of evidence this or at least something similar is now happening in syria. and before that as we all know it happened in iraq but that's why i said feel the difference for years the i think that what happened then and what's happening now logan is being justified by the fight for national interests rights and freedoms. but in reality

it was a forceful dismantling of a country's political system with intrusion into its internal affairs and installing a loyal political regime nothing good came out of it by the way we know what happened and we can see what is happening. the situation in iraq is very volatile dozens of people are killed every day he would know. libya was torn apart by this war and there are still regions where the central authorities have not managed to regain full control the way we expected to. here is also on the brink of a similar war basically there's a civil war raging in the country it's a disaster we have always believed that the power to solve serious problems should lie with its people but the active interference that we now see them might potentially lead to the same problems and create yet another unstable country when you get a permanent state of civil war criminal. nog you put it though again go out you put

it though a good story to many political analysts and historians who study war say that there's always a point in time when a war acquires certain the mentum with what we did or awful what he did on the bush the point of no return oh yes and after that it's very difficult to convince the warring sides to attempt negotiations but i think it also seems to me that five years ago the russian leadership tried not to go that far. on my machine and i don't know if you would agree with me or not but as a war correspondent i feel that our western partners. often a purpose if we push the whole nations beyond this point. that we agree well. western partners sometimes behave like a bull in a china shop. squeezing or crush everything and then don't know what to do

next with a go at it but emma. if we're being completely honest what good did the arab spring bring to the arab world so i would do it bring freedom a little with what you can the best. what you can most countries it lead to endless bloodshed regime change and continuous unrest. i have no illusions about that either but. as for the pushing you mentioned yes unfortunately that's true but if. you stressed several times that you consider this was. a personal crime and that russia doesn't blame the georgian people as a whole. and yet your decision to recognize the independence of south are said to end up policy affects all georgians and will probably continue doing so for many generations did you really have to take it. otherwise we couldn't secure the

interests of our citizens and those of your country. let's imagine that after everything that happened we would just have parted summits with the police mr saakashvili and his comrades would have reinstated military capabilities. by the way they almost immediately started receiving assistance planes and ships and weapons were streaming in because it was we have to do the things that keep maintaining up peacekeeping mission there after all that happened but it was impossible for it will be many of the people who live there are our citizens they made up their minds about georgia back in the ninety's should referendums. but for some time we thought recognizing independence that it would be premature. but almost there was still hope that the georgian leadership would be able to hold its disintegrating country together. not that unfortunately with that was his crime for

his people for many generations of georgian people it was going. on he himself put the last nail into the coffin of the former georgian state. but he killed those hopes with his own actions. the both are going badly over the last five years relations have improved a bit russians can now travel to georgia without visas while georgian wines are being sold here in russia. from the mineral water to within one nevertheless despite all those improvements do you think there is the limits that the bilateral relationship will never be able to pass. in this regard i'm a total optimist. i'm convinced that everything will be finally. peoples didn't fall out of course the conflicts didn't help with any but it's not based on deep running disagreements. again that was

a criminal mistake by certain leaders me. but these days the situation is indeed a bit different. countries new leadership that was brought in by the political and constitutional reforms is taking a more pragmatic stance that we welcome that. the in my god of the willing i just want to remind you that russia has never broken diplomatic ties with georgia people making sure that we are ready to reaffirm the month certain conditions with the new and those conditions a simple. justice but in recognizing what happened but as i think about. let me ask you a question that may seem somewhat politically sensitive what if after saakashvili steps down georgia's new political leaders find a way to develop relations with a south or say to an apostle. would it be possible at least in theory for these

nations to unite. and would russia recognize the territorial integrity of georgia in this case. but the media everything in the world depends on decisions made by people in the me and on their political will. there is a choice rests with the people who live there. the people of georgia would agree and the leaders they elect. the people of a because here at the people of south of setia have the power to give their leaders any kind of mandate. and this will be constitutional and in line with universally recognized international practice or people to them is not only choice it's the product we want them to live in peace was the one usually but it's up to them to decide what relations they will have with one another. we won't interfere with that process. but of course we will defend russia's national interests. i have one last question i think that war has

recently become a popular and even trendy political tool. that someone has had many meetings with world leaders why do you think war is so appealing to them. why is it still that your popular instrument in international affairs which is. popular saying war is merely an extension of politics by other means. this really unfortunately this behavior is quite common. but he did not because i am i in my career which might not be the longest but nevertheless i've been through some very difficult situations you know just have to and that's that's the police and i've had to make some tough decisions. but in your mind i can tell you you need to do that nothing's good had that ever comes out of war is that the point you think you want what would be if you've already mentioned

a number of conflicts. but can you give me an example we could all of can you name would be at least one country in what that has benefited from civil war. or from a military intervention by other countries to change its political system. what you see in these countries is nothing but problems but the and so it's a big mistake to think that you can achieve anything positive through war at the thought it was a terrible thing you've been on and i pray to god we never see that situation again . again that this is over half time paul but please join us again frankly i'm here .

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this week's main headlines on u.s. private bradley manning faces more than a century in prison after a court martial guilty of most charges in america's biggest of. edward snowden slips out of a moscow airport ending his transit to russia the fugitive whistleblower. to the fury of washington. the last british resident in the detention center describes. our own investigation into the torture. for a presidential run off travel to the country to see. to make it part of the stronghold and whether people believe the.